It's a Tough Life
by Fmjir Vuicjefnejl
Summary: Chef Bob Richardson is a sad little minifigure. The five star restaurant, BrickPlace is putting Bob out of business. Until the teenage boy named Dave came along, that is. Inspired by the LEGO City Barbacue Stand set.
1. The Boy

**It's a Tough Life**

Bob Richardson had a tough life. He was a chef, but he only cooked hot dogs and chicken drumsticks. But of course, that wasn't the tough part. The tough part was that he rarely _ever_ got any costumers.

This was because there was _very_ popular restaurant across the street from Bob's house, where he had his stand set up. No one really even noticed the stand, due to the fancy-looking building shadowing it. That is, until _he_ came along.

It was a cloudy February afternoon. Bob was sitting in a chair behind his stand, as usual. And as usual, the fancy, five star restaurant, BrickPlace was mocking him from across the street. He saw a group of about five minipeople walking through the double doors of BrickPlace, which were made of bricks. Plastic bricks, of course. Almost everything was plastic, even Bob. But unlike the food at BrickPlace, Bob's food was _certainly not_ plastic.

He then saw a middle-aged miniperson walking up the sidewalk towards Bob. He was just about to ask what Bob was serving, when out of the corner of his eye he saw BrickPlace. He quickly turned around and ran across the street to the restaurant. But Bob's luck with the next person was different.

A young miniperson came running up the sidewalk towards Bob's stand.

"Hello, and how are you?" Bob asked the kid.

"Fine," he replied. "What do you have to eat here? I'm starving. The food over at BrickPlace isn't very filling at all."

"Uh, um, uh, hold on, um, we have chicken drumsticks. And then we also have hot dogs." Bob replied. "What would you like?"

"Um...I'll take a hot dog," the young miniperson said. "By the way, my name's David. But you can call me Dave."

"Okay, Dave, your food will be ready shortly," Bob replied.

Bob took the hot dog out of his freezer, turned on his grill and placed the hot dog on the grill. He waited a few minutes, flipped it over, waited a few more minutes, put it on a bun and handed it to Dave.

"Enjoy!" Bob said cheerfully. Dave took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.

"_THAT WAS THE BEST HOT DOG I'VE EVER EATEN!"_ Dave exclaimed.

Bob was extremely...surprised and pleased at the same time. "My own recipe," Bob said. "Glad you liked it."

"There's _GOT _to be some way to get people over here instead of at BrickPlace, because this is _SO MUCH BETTER!"_ Dave said. "I think I have an idea." He grinned, and so did Bob. This was already the best day of Bob's career. But it was about to get even better.


	2. The Idea

"Okay, so, the idea is to bring the stand over to BrickPlace, in front of the door, and have people try a sample of a hot dog (or drumstick) before they can go into BrickPlace. That way, they'll want more. And buy a whole meal. And never get into BrickPlace," Dave explained.

"Simple, but genius!" Bob exclaimed excitedly.

"Now, let's go."

They got on either side of the cart, and carefully wheeled it across the street. They put it down right in front of the door, just as planned. And then they waited. In about a few minutes, a customer showed up.

"Get out of my way!" the customer yelled.

"After you try one of our hot dogs!" Bob said cheerfully. "Just a little bite."

So he took a bite. And then….

"GIVE ME A HOT DOG!!!" he said rather rudely. Bob didn't mind. He handed him a hot dog. And then the person squeezed a bit of mustard on it and ate it in less than a minute. "Thanks, mister!"

"You're welcome!" Bob said. "Come again!"

The person walked away. Then Bob and Dave jumped up into the air and slapped each other a high five.

"It worked!" Dave shouted happily.

This routine repeated for a couple of hours. It ended when the boss at BrickPlace came out the door and tripped them. They landed on the stand and tumbled onto the street.

"_WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"_ the boss shouted.

"Umm….nothing," Dave replied. Then, they quickly stood up and ran across the street to Bob's house.

"I sure hope he doesn't call the cops," Dave said.

"He's probably going to," Bob said. "But it was a good idea. We did get _some_ customers away from there. OH, NO, THE CART!"

"Right!" Dave replied. "Hey, I know how you can make your business more popular. Turn your house into a restaurant!"

"THAT'S A PERFECT IDEA!" Bob exclaimed. "We need to get to work!"

And so they did. Bob's business was about to get a lot bigger. And more popular. Legally, this time.


	3. PreConstruction

"He's gone nuts!" the boss was saying to the owner of BrickPlace. They were in the conference room because of a code red alert created by the boss. "He took his cart across the street and _blocked our door!"_

"Who cares?" the owner told him. "Frank, he got a few customers. So what? We get a few _hundred _customers a day! Again, he's gotten a hundred. _EVER!"_

"Well, he and that _kid_ oh, also, that kid was one of our most loyal customers are probably thinking of bigger and better ideas to get more popular than us," Frank said.

"Well," the owner said with a grin, "that's never going to happen."

--

"Okay, so, we got the hundred packages of napkins, we got the two hundred new plates, uh….oh, I don't see the tables. And that's a very important thing to have in a restaurant." Dave read through a list of things they needed almost every time they got a new item.

"Dave, we're almost at the furniture store," Bob replied. "See that furniture store up the road? Yeah, that's just up the road. And I'm driving there. Right now."

"Sorry," Dave said. "I was just making sure you hadn't forgotten."

"I'm not stupid."

They got there about two minutes later. They found a table, and asked how many the store had in stock. They had sixteen.

"Sixteen, huh?" Bob asked, sort of disappointed. "Well, I guess that should do."

And they bought them. The total cost was $2,500, but Bob didn't matter. He would soon have a restaurant. A real restaurant.

"Okay, so the next thing on the list is chairs," Dave said as they got in the car.

"Why didn't you tell me that before we left the store?!" Bob asked.

"I was a little busy making trips with you in and out with boxes of table pieces in my hands," Dave replied.

"Oh, right."

So they got out of their car and went back into the store.

When they found a chair that seemed to match the tables, they asked how many were in stock, and this time the number was surprisingly high. There were three hundred in stock.

"Uh, yeah…we'll take a hundred," Bob said to the cashier.

"Okay," the cashier replied. "Boy, what is with you two today? If I didn't know any better I'd say you were starting a restaurant."

"Uh, um, uh, um, uh, what? No, no, no, no, no! That's not what we're doing. Not at _all."_ Dave replied.

"Whatever," the cashier replied. "That'll be $3,462."

Bob hesitated for a moment, and then handed the cashier the money.

"Well, that's the last thing on the list," Dave said when they got in the car.

"Well, thank goodness for that," Bob replied. "At least I won't go _completely _broke today."

And so they drove home to start setting up their restaurant.


End file.
